Currently standalone devices are being developed to receive and transmit electronic documents in the form of e-mails or internet fax (“i-fax”) messages. Because of limited physical space and hardware cost, designers are challenged with how to offer and manage the increased complexity of multiple functionality offered on small devices without sacrificing ease of use to the user.
Having a device user interface that does not have touch screen capability to visually present the information link to selection features further complicates the process.
Notwithstanding the physical space limits on the control panel, user information on status, defaults and feature options still must be displayed and be user-accessible through an obvious and easy-to-use methodology.
In the past, on non-touch screen control panels, a cascade column of LED's with words and/or icons to describe the available options was used as the user scrolled through the selection offered within the feature, i. e., original types, text, mixed, graphics, photo, using a hard-wired button or buttons. On touch screen control panels, users are offered visual feature selections that are activated by touch within the physical constraints of the LCD panel. These visual features may be represented through buttons, tabs or other means.
When a multi-function device is not supported by traditional input/output devices such as a touch-screen display unit, hard-wired buttons and LED cascades, a solution is therefore needed to present the information or control functions by another method.